While Young
by Aurilia
Summary: The last words of the Boy Who Lived.


**Disclaimer: ** This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

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Dear friends, 

While young, we sit and see the beauty that surrounds us, never acknowledging it. Not truly noting it as anything of value. In our arrogance, we firmly believe that we will remember this sunrise, this dew-bejeweled web, this _moment_ for all eternity. Sadly, this is not the case. Beauty fades, not just in reality, but in the dim recesses of memory, until all that remains is naught but a vague recollection of _I've seen beauty and it moved me_, but not the details. Hell, as we all know, is in the details.

I can personally vouch for that fact, and for all I've said thus far. Hell is in the details. I don't remember color any more. I know that 'red' is the color of blood and berries and a blush, but I can no longer pull up the memory of what it truly _is_. Likewise, I can describe my friends. Hermione has brown eyes and bushy hair, Ron has blue eyes, red hair, and freckles. But, had I the opportunity, I would be unable to pick them out of a line-up. Because the details fade.

How did it come to this? I sit in what I hope is a presentable manner, holding in my lap what I know to be a small, silver dagger with emerald accents. My job is done. What is the saying? Ah, yes. _Let the peasants rejoice!_ Let them, for my job here is done. Ask someone else how I did it, or read about it in the annals of the Prophet tomorrow. Or in a history text in twenty years' time. I care not. For none of it matters anymore.

Because the memories are fading. And I cannot allow them to fade. I will revel in them once more, then end this as it should have ended. With blood.

I can hear the scritch of the dicta-quill on the parchment on the desk. I can hear the faint pinging of rain on the window, the groan of wind through the trees. I can feel the warmth of the fire from across the room, tiny changes in air pressure that let me know the house is settling and shifting in the storm. I can smell the alcohol in the tumbler on the mantle and the dust of the books in the room. Books that have remained untouched for two years.

It has been two years since I could read them, though Hermione, I know, would have been kind enough to read them to me if I had but asked. There is a pressure in my head, a pressure I know and recognize. I cannot cry. I lost that release with the fall of Voldemort. Denied the balance that comes with release, all emotions have become… clogged. Happiness is a fleeting impression of long-forgotten color. Anger is futile and cold. All that remains is despair.

I remember, in muted shades of what might or might not be accurate color, that day. The night that followed. So many dead. So many dying. The light and the dark and the merely shadowed. Falling, falling. Everywhere I looked, they were falling. Even those that still stood were falling. I fought so hard that day. The fire of righteousness fuelled me to my goal.

It was nearing dawn when we met in a field of smoke, blood, and death. It was down to the two of us. Voldemort and I. We dueled. He knew it was the last time either of us would have to face the either. He no longer had a back-up plan. The locket was destroyed, the cup as well. To mock him, I had been wearing the jacket made from Nagini's skin. I knew, too, what my role was.

I still don't know how I managed to do so, but we fought to the point we both needed to pause and catch our breath. I knew then that the original plan was shot to hell. Time for plan 'B.' I reached into my pocket and withdrew a small vial. I had known that the timing for this plan left something to be desired, which was why it had been regulated to backup status, rather than primary status.

I downed the contents of the vial; the liquid hit my stomach like liquid ice, like a frozen river of molten metal. A snippet of poetry flashed through my mind at the time, _Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe._ I tried to count, but the cold was more debilitating than I had anticipated. Voldemort laughed, not knowing the reason behind my sudden lack of attention to him. He said something insulting, I don't recall the specifics.

I looked up, through the cold that had settled upon me, and smiled. He fell silent and looked thoughtful for a moment. I recall the expression he held when it all clicked into place. In his moment of inaction, I plunged forward through my pain, through the cold. _Avada Kedavra._ Six syllables, and the Dark Lord was no more. He no longer had a horcrux to retreat and regroup from.

I had known when we destroyed them that there was one we hadn't considered. Hermione and I went over the clues and the full picture had emerged. In either the brilliance of insanity, or the cunning deviousness of the most evil mind to ever grace the world, Voldemort had made _me_ into his final horcrux. There was no way around it. During that final battle, I had to die.

And so I did.

It was Hermione that figured out how to bring me back. The potion froze me, keeping me in a state of severe hypothermia. Muggle methods brought me back, but not without a price. My eyes were the most obvious. The cold completely destroyed the tissue, and, as Mad-Eye Moody can attest, even wizards cannot regenerate optic tissue. Without an existing eye, I couldn't even benefit from the type of magical prosthetic Moody uses. They had to have a blueprint of sorts to base it off of.

Other things I had lost surfaced over the year following the downfall of Voldemort. My wand no longer reacted to me. That was the first thing we found. It took six months to track down a wand-maker, since Ollivander had disappeared. The new wand is pine and unicorn tail hair. Eight inches. It still feels wrong in my hand.

I can no longer speak to snakes, though I don't lament the loss of _that_ talent. My working repertoire of spells is limited to simple ones most people master by the end of their third year. I no longer recall much of what was taught in any of the defense classes. I remember the incantation _Expecto Patronum_, and associate it with the image of a multi-pronged deer. Hermione tells me it's the spell to ward off Dementors. I can't get it to work. She tells me not to worry about it. It's extraordinarily difficult magic.

I heard her talking to Ron a few days ago. It seems she has a theory. When didn't she have a theory? She believes that much of what I was had more to do with the bit of Voldemort that I carried than with who I really was. This saddens me. Most of my life has been a lie.

I remember being a powerful wizard. Now I take mediocrity to new levels. The one thing I enjoyed about the wizarding world was the magic. Now, though, I feel as I did when Sirius asked me to go and live with him, only to be shuffled back to the Dursleys'. I held in my hands a great gift, and now that gift has all but deserted me. I feel bereft. There is a large chunk of me that is missing.

I shouldn't have survived that final battle. I know that now. It would have been better for all and sundry if I had died in a blaze of glory than for me to live on in this half-state, a shadow of who I used to be. So now I shall go in search of my missing parts. I'll tell Sirius everyone says 'hi'.

Now, Ron. Hermione. Don't mourn me. Please. Know I love the both of you very much. I just can't live like this any more. Don't blame yourselves, I know I don't.

Love,  
Harry

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**A/N:** Yet another rather depressing One-Shot from my mind. I hope you all enjoy it, and I'd love to hear some feedback on it. :-) 


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